In a typical manufacturing plant, it is often necessary to relocate pieces of equipment or supplies. Much of this equipment or supplies is too heavy to be carried by the plant personnel. The conventional solution to this problem is to utilize a forklift to lift and carry the equipment or supplies from the old location to the new location. A forklift has the disadvantage of only having a pair of forks on which the equipment or supplies to be moved must be balanced during the transport of the equipment or supplies from the old location to the new location. If the equipment or supplies are in any way irregular in shape or weight distribution, it can be quite precarious to try and relocate the equipment or supplies by using a forklift. The forklift operator is potentially at risk if the weight of the equipment or supplies shifts during movement and the forklift turns over.
The forklift has the additional disadvantage of requiring operating room to move around. There must be sufficient space for the forklift to twist and turn in and around any structures or equipment that lies in the route between the old location and the new location. It is often desirable to relocate equipment or supplies to different floors of a building and forklifts are just not functional for going up and down stairs.
Other devices have been utilized for the relocation of equipment or supplies about a workplace. Wheeled transportation carts, either motorized or manual, have been suggested but the weight of the equipment or supplies that can be relocated is limited to that weight which can be accommodated by the cart and the weight that can be transported by the motor driving the cart or the personnel pushing or pulling on the cart.
If it is necessary to relocate the equipment or supplies over irregular terrain or to different floors or levels of a building or storage or work area, wheeled transportation carts are virtually useless. The forklift again has some practicality in this situation, but if stairs are involved, the forklift becomes ineffective. With this problem in mind, many facilities have had to go to the expense of building elevators so that forklifts can be driven from floor to floor. The addition of elevators adds to the overall expense of the construction and operation of the facility and takes useful operational space out of service. Heavy electrical equipment must be moved into place in a new building or on a construction site before power is available to operate an elevator.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus that is useful in relocating equipment or supplies from an old location in a manufacturing plant, construction site or similar workplace regardless of whether the equipment or supplies is irregular or regular in shape or weight and regardless of whether confined areas are involved or whether the equipment or supplies must be moved over irregular terrain or between different floors of a building or structure.
It is a feature of the present invention to provide a portable equipment or supplies handling apparatus comprising a track assembly, a movable platform and a tugger-puller. The track assembly is laid out along the path through the facility from the old location to the new location at which it is
desired to relocate the equipment or supplies. The movable platform is mounted on the track assembly and is designed to receive the equipment or supplies that are to be moved. The tugger puller is secured at the new location and the activation of the tugger puller pulls the movable platform from the old location, along the track assembly, to the new location at which the equipment or supplies can be offloaded from the movable platform, if desired. The apparatus of the present invention is quite portable. A set of track sections, the movable platform and the tugger puller can all be loaded into a gang box and transported to the location at which it is to be used. After use, the entire apparatus can be disassembled, placed back into the gang box and stored for later use.
It is an advantage of the present invention that equipment or supplies can be relocated from an old location to a new location through any type of terrain or up and down stairs or to any desired levels in a building or structure by utilizing the same equipment and the necessity of using and maintaining forklifts or elevators is eliminated. The track sections of the present invention can be oriented along a flat floor, up and down stairs, up the side of a wall and even across a ceiling due to the configuration of the track.